News in Brief: May 2019

The £60M Sandwell Aquatics Centre, which will host events at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham has been given the final go-ahead by local councillors. The new centre, to be built on Londonderry Playing Fields in Smethwick, will be built by Wates Construction and run by Sandwell Leisure Trust (SLT). It is expected to be completed by 2021.

Billington Holdings has announced a record performance for 2018. Revenue was up 5.2% to a record £77.3M, compared to £73.5M in 2017. Profit before tax increased by 11.4% to £4.9M up from £4.4M the previous year. Billington Chief Executive Officer Mark Smith said: “We are delighted at the progress which has been made across all our Group companies during 2018 and this has helped Billington deliver a record performance.”

Manchester City Council has approved plans for two warehouses of 9,500m² and 12,800m² at Icon Manchester Airport, a growing global logistics area. Icon Industrial – a joint venture between Stoford and TPG Real Estate – said that the latest developments will meet rising occupational demand at the 45-acre build-to-suit logistics park, which has outline planning consent for circa 92,000m².

Developer Mitsubishi Estate London, construction manager Lendlease and development manager Stanhope have started preliminary work on the 50-storey tower development at 8 Bishopsgate in the City of London. The 204m-structure will feature 52,000m² of prime office space, retail units on the ground floor and a public viewing gallery at its summit. Construction work on the steel-framed £300M project is expected to complete in late 2022. The tendering process for the major steelwork package is still ongoing.

Kloeckner Metals UK/Westok has been awarded with two new certificates; BS EN 3834-2:2005 as well as EN 1090-2, which maintains their CE certification in the European Union in the event of a ‘No Deal Brexit’.